|
LSST Awarded with $14.2 Million
National Science Foundation Awards $14.2 Million to Large Synoptic Survey Telescopen
National Science Foundation
has awarded The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope with
$14.2 million for the first year of a four year to
design and develop 8.4 meter telescope by january
2012.
The Proposed telescope
is based on advances in several existing technologies
and the project at LSST is already underway. The contruction
of the telescope will begin in 2009. Award from National
science foundation will allow engineers and scientists
to complete the project and begin contruction by 2009.
Distinct 3-Meter Design
using large optics fabrication technique. Telescope
Design includes a convex 4-meter secondary mirror,
the size of many primary mirrors on today's large
research telescopes.
Data management systems
which can process and manage the 30 terabytes of data
generated every night of observation.
Detectors to build Largest
Digital camera ever with 3 Billion pixel resolution.
The LSST will image
an area of the sky roughly 50 times that of the full
moon every 15 seconds, opening a movie-like window
on objects that change or move on rapid time scales.
Such objects include supernovae explosions that can
be seen halfway across the universe, nearby asteroids
which might potentially strike Earth, and faint objects
in the outer solar system far beyond Pluto. Using
the light-bending gravity of dark matter, the LSST
will chart the history of the expansion of the universe
and probe the mysterious nature of dark energy.
The LSST data will be
"open" to the public and scientists around
the world - anyone with a web browser will be able
to access the images and other data produced by the
LSST. "The LSST is a public-private partnership
and will offer a 'New Sky' available to everyone,"
said LSST Director J. Anthony Tyson of the University
of California, Davis. "Curious minds of all ages
will be able to ask new questions of the LSST's public
database and zoom into a color movie of the deep universe."
The LSST Corporation
awarded a $2.3 million contract to the University
of Arizona Steward Observatory Mirror Lab in January,
2005, to purchase the glass and begin engineering
work for the LSST's 8.4-meter diameter main mirror.
Although the final site for the LSST has not been
decided, the telescope will be placed in one of three
candidate locations -- Las Campanas, Chile; Cerro
Pachon, Chile; or San Pedro Martir, Baja California,
Mexico.
The LSST has been identified
as a national scientific priority in reports by several
National Academy of Sciences and federal agency advisory
committees. This judgment is based upon the LSST's
ability to address some of the most pressing open
questions in astronomy and fundamental physics, while
driving advances in data-intensive science and computing.
The National Academy of Sciences "Quarks-to-Cosmos"
report recommended the LSST as an incisive probe of
the nature of dark energy. The LSST will open a new
frontier in addressing time variable phenomena in
astronomy, according to a May 2000 academy report
"Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium."
In 2003, the University
of Arizona, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory,
Research Corporation, and the University of Washington,
formed the LSST Corporation, a non-profit 501(c)3
Arizona corporation, with headquarters in Tucson,
AZ. Membership has expanded to include Brookhaven
National Laboratory, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics, Johns Hopkins University. Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center,
Stanford University, University of California, Davis,
and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
|
LSST Basic Configuration
(Last Updated 7-23-04)
System
| Representative Key Science
Missions |
| 1.
| Dark energy
|
| 2.
| Solar system survey
|
| 3.
| Optical transients
|
| 4.
| Galactic map |
|
| First light schedule |
January, 2012 |
| Sky coverage |
20,000 degrees2 |
| Standard cadence |
10 sec expose, 1 sec read, 10 sec expose,
1 sec read, 5 sec slew |
| Etendue ( AΩ ) |
302 meter2degrees2
|
| Field of View |
3.5 degrees (10.0 square degrees) |
| Effective clear aperture |
6.9m (including obscuration) |
| Wavelength coverage |
400nm to 1040nm |
| Number of active filters |
Five |
Telescope and Site
| Optical Configuration |
3-mirror modified Paul-Baker
|
| Final f-ratio |
f/1.25 |
| Mount configuration |
Alt - Azimuth |
| Primary mirror aperture |
8.4 m |
Filter set (FWHM points - nm)
|
| g:
| 400nm to 559nm
|
| r:
| 545nm to 703nm
|
| i:
| 689nm to 862nm
|
| z:
| 845nm to 946nm
|
| Y:
| 946nm to 1040nm |
|
| Step-and-settle time |
5 seconds |
Candidate Sites
|
Cerro Pachon, Chile
Las Campanas, Chile
San Pedro Martir, Mexico
La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain |
Camera(includes
focal plane, electronics, refractive corrector
lenses, shutter, filters, filter mechanism,
dewar, body)
| Pixel count |
3 Gpixels |
| Readout time |
1 sec |
| Dynamic range |
16 bits |
| Nominal exposure time |
10 seconds |
| Plate scale |
50.9 microns/arcsec |
Data Management
| Real-time alert latency
|
60 seconds |
| Nightly data generation rate |
30 Tbytes |
| Yearly data generation rate |
6 Pbytes |
| Total disk storage |
18 Pbytes |
| Nominal computer requirement |
20+ Tflops |
| Long-haul communications BW |
2.5 Gbits/sec |
|
|
|
Original News
can be found here
|
